As a small to medium sized business owner, General Manager or Marketing Manager, it is essential to develop a marketing budget that aligns with your business goals and objectives. A well-planned marketing budget can help you reach your business goals, address your target audience, increase brand awareness, and ultimately drive sales.
Step 1: Define Your Objectives
Examples of short-term goals:
- Launch of a new brand or product
- Seasonal ad campaigns
- Refresh or upgrade website
Examples of long-term goals:
- Get on the first page of Google for three of your main products/keywords.
- Develop an email marketing automation flow to nurture leads.
- Develop a sales funnel with lead capture content that consistently generates X number of new customers each month.
Step 2: Determine Your Target Audience
Identifying your target audience is crucial in developing an effective marketing budget. You need to understand who your customers are, where they are and how they behave. For example, how do they like to purchase? What’s the typical buyer journey?
This information will help you determine the most effective marketing channels to reach your target audience and how to get them to engage with your products and services.
Step 3: Research Your Competitors
Conducting competitor research is an important step in developing a marketing budget. It helps you identify what your competitors are doing, what level of spend they are investing and how you can differentiate yourself from them. This information will help you determine the budget required to compete effectively in the market.
Consider the following:
- Which competitors are performing well in your industry?
- What types of ads and marketing strategies are they currently using?
- How much are they budgeting for their marketing?
Step 4: Allocating Your Budget
Once you have defined your objectives, identified your target audience, and conducted competitor research, you can confidently allocate your marketing budget. There are several factors to consider when allocating your budget, including:
Marketing channels: Determine which marketing channels are most effective in reaching your target audience and allocate funds accordingly.
- Sales & distribution - direct selling; selling through intermediaries and how Sales & Marketing can best support them.
- Marketing Channels: The marketing channels you should consider break down into four primary categories:
- Digital marketing. Digital marketing channels include social media marketing, online content marketing, automated or manual email marketing, digital advertising with pay-per-click ads or social media ads, and search engine optimization.
- Inbound marketing. Inbound marketing channels complement digital marketing, including SEO, blogs, videos on YouTube and Vimeo, downloadable resources such as e-guides.
- Outbound marketing. The most measurable form of outbound marketing is email marketing. Other types of outbound marketing include TV and radio advertisements, outdoor, print, trade shows, and promotional products.
- Brand awareness campaigns. These channels can also overlap with other channels and may include social media and social advertising, content marketing, public relations such as sponsorships.
Timing: Consider the timing of your marketing campaigns and allocate funds accordingly. For example, if you are launching a new product, you may need to allocate more funds towards marketing activities during the launch period. If your products are seasonally focussed, allocate budgets according to the season, for example, air conditioners leading up to and during summer months.
ROI: Consider the potential return on investment (ROI) of each marketing activity and allocate funds accordingly. For example, if a particular marketing channel has a higher ROI than others, you may want to allocate more funds towards that channel. Another example is if you have a particular product range that is your business’s cash cow, you may want to allocate more funds towards that product’s marketing.
Step 5: Monitor and Adjust Your Budget
Once your marketing budget is determined, it’s important to monitor its effectiveness and adjust as necessary. Regularly reviewing your marketing activities and their ROI can help you identify areas where you may need to adjust your budget.
For example, measuring performance of ad campaigns can help deduce which are performing best and providing a ROI.
Conclusion
In conclusion, developing a marketing budget for a SME business requires careful planning and consideration. By defining your objectives, identifying your target audience, researching your competitors, allocating your budget, and monitoring and adjusting your budget, you can develop an effective marketing plan that helps you achieve your business goals.
BEAM
BEAM is a strategic marketing agency that helps businesses achieve business growth.
We do this with our unique Growth Accelerator Program and Ongoing Marketing Team support.
If you’d like help in determining your marketing budget, developing a marketing plan or increasing your business performance and ROI, we’d love to chat.